


Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it

by rilina



Category: Saiunkoku Monogatari
Genre: Community: 31_days, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilina/pseuds/rilina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has a breaking point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a quote from Confucius. For 31_days December 24 theme: Married with Children / Your music is shaite, it keeps me up all night.

In the weeks leading up to the Kaishi examination, Ran Shuuei receives a series of increasingly frazzled letters from his elder brothers in Ran Province.

_. . . The heads of the Heki and Haku clans keep sending us vague threats disguised as very politely worded letters, Shuuei. Would you know why? . . ._

_. . . and finally, someone slipped a mild poison into the sake at our most recent feast. I’ve just recovered enough to leave my sickbed. Have you done something to attract attention to the Ran clan, younger brother? . . ._

_. . . There have been three attempts on our lives in the past week! What sort of enemies are you making, anyway? . . ._

He’s composing his latest reply when he hears the faint strains of a wooden flute, followed by the crash of timber and impressively long stream of invective. There’s a moment of pregnant silence, after which the warbling of the flute resumes.

* * *

  
Kouyuu enters with his usual armful of paperwork, grumbling about incompetent civil servants, spoiled examination candidates, and stupid young lords. He falls silent when he sees Shuuei contemplating an inksplotch on the wall.

“I can’t decide whether it looks more like a turnip or a shrimp dumpling.”

“What happened?”

“The brush slipped from my hand.”

“All the way across the room?”

Shuuei only smiles his usual infuriating smile, but it wavers a moment later, when both men hear an all-too-familiar toot-toot-warble-squeak-toot.

“Just slipped from your hand, Foolish Elder Brother Number Four?”

Shuuei puts his head down on his desk and claps his hands over his ears. “All the way across the room.”


End file.
